Indiana woman gets 40 years in malnourished baby's death

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — A western Indiana woman has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the neglect death of her malnourished 8-month-old daughter, who weighed just 11 pounds when she died.

Makenzie Shultz, 23, was also ordered to spend four years on supervised probation following her release from prison. The Lafayette woman was convicted in September on seven charges, including neglect resulting in death and failure to report a dead body.

A coroner found that Briley Giroux was emaciated, dehydrated and malnourished, and had died several hours before she was taken to a hospital in November 2015. The baby, who died from asphyxiation, had not been fed for several days before her death.

Court testimony indicated Briley slept in a closet where blankets and clothes were piled on top of her to muffle her cries.

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Tippecanoe County Judge Randy Williams said during Shultz's Wednesday sentencing that although her baby was malnourished, police found unopened baby food items inside the home following her death.

"Briley, from everything we saw and heard, was never given a chance," Williams said.

Briley's father, Chad A. Giroux Jr., took her lifeless body to a Lafayette hospital on Nov. 16, 2015. He pleaded guilty to charges that include neglect of a dependent resulting in death and obstruction of justice.

Giroux was sentenced in March to 35 years in prison, but online court records show that he appealed his sentence in September.

After Briley's death, prosecutors said Shultz and Giroux took steps to conceal potential evidence, including several computer hard drives and bags of baby clothes and other items.